Prologue: The Day I died

The Day I Died

It is scary when you can see death coming for you and have no escape. The scream of tortured tires, the acrid smell of burning brakes, all combined to add sound to the terrifying truth. In my last second a thought flitted across my mind.

'This is really it.

I'm gonna die.

And I'm Really Gonna Die Now.'

Death didn't frighten me so much as it ticked me off. At forty-three with a lame job, living in a lame apartment, recovering from a lame divorce, I couldn't catch a break. There was so much I could have been. I flashed on all the places I could have gone and jobs I could have landed. Life was ending and I had nothing to show for having lived.

All that and more flickered through my mind in the last millisecond.

The collision was big. The impact must have stopped my heart and burst numerous blood vessels in my brain. The collapsing hood and folding chassis were the last things I remember seeing, as mind blowing pain exploded inside me, chasing consciousness.

My next thought was that I was really and truly dead ... and then I realized I couldn't be because I was thinking about being dead.

How can you be dead, if you're thinking about being dead?

Great.

My first experience with death and it's a conundrum.

"Brian! BRIAN! B R I A N!!!" I heard the voice but didn't recognize it. It was a nice voice but completely foreign. The pain in my head was excruciating but it should have been, having apparently survived a head on crash with an overloaded produce truck, in my worn out, beat up, Toyota.

"Brian. Baby. Don't fall asleep. Stay awake. You hear me? Stay with me. I'm getting you an ambulance. Don't worry. Mommy's here with you. Can you hear me, honey? PLEASE speak to me, baby.

Please."

As the pain in my head escalated from terrible to brutal, I wondered who Brian was and why his mother was screaming in my ear. As I brought my hands to my aching head, I noticed that I was wearing a watch I didn't own, and I was my arm was covered by a shirt that wasn't mine. It was a shirt I would never be caught dead wearing. What was going on?

Attempting to raise my head brought a combination of nausea, dizziness and a brand new wave of pain. I tried to slide away from the broken glass and crushed passenger side of a newish Mercury, triggering a new round of anxiety, as the old, worn out, Toyota that I was driving just a second ago, had magically been transformed into a Mercury, and I was almost in the lap of the screaming woman.

None of it made a bit of sense.

My body chose that instant to cave in. Too much had happened for me to process, let alone deal with. I'm sure the woman driving thought I was having a killer seizure as my stomach, head and chest all attacked me at once. Over the shaking, dry heaves and shooting pain, I heard her hysterically screaming for help, felt her holding me tightly and knew that everything – EVERYTHING – was all wrong.

As crazy as it sounds, even to me, I knew I'd been transported into someone else's body, and into some other person's car at the instant of impact with the tractor trailer. I was far from home, along I-44, just outside of Springfield, Missouri.

The toughest thing was not being able to control my body – well, this body – enough to assure the crying woman that I wasn't her baby, wasn't about to die on her, and I was definitely not who she thought I was. Her despair seemed far worse than my pain and confusion.

Then I saw my car. My ugly Toyota was ready for the crusher. My old-faithful, car was mangled underneath the front bumper of the produce truck. The really weird thing was realizing I wasn't in it. Lettuce rained everywhere from the bed of the truck and I was cognizant enough to make a little joke.

Some vegetarians were going to be disappointed, tonight.

If my car was over there and I was over here, then who was in there and how did I get here, and what was going on?

As I tried to make some sense of my condition, I blacked out.

Chapter 1 »